Jean-Michel Charlier

Jean-Michel Charlier
Jean-Michel Charlier
	Jean-Michel Charlier
Born	30 October 1924; Liège, Belgium
Died	10 July 1989 (aged 64); Saint-Cloud, France
Nationality	Belgian
Area(s)	Writer
Notable works	Buck Danny ; Barbe-Rouge; Blueberry
Awards	full list

Jean-Michel Charlier (French: [ʒɑ̃ miʃɛl ʃaʁlije]; 30 October 1924 – 10 July 1989) was a Belgian comics writer. He was a co-founder of the famed Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote.

Life

Charlier was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1924.^[1] In 1945 he got a job as a draughtsman in Brussels with World Press, the syndicate of Georges Troisfontaines, which worked mainly for Spirou magazine. The following year he and artist Victor Hubinon created the four-page comic strip L'Agonie du Bismarck. Charlier wrote the script and also drew the ships and airplanes. In 1947, Charlier and Hubinon began the long-running air-adventure comic strip Buck Danny. After a few years, Charlier stopped all work on the drawings and concentrated only on the scenarios, on the advice of Jijé, then the senior artist at Spirou.^[1]

Unable to support himself writing comic scripts at a time when Dupuis concentrated almost solely on the magazine and albums were few and far between, Charlier qualified for a pilot's license in 1949 and briefly flew for the airline SABENA.

However the following year Charlier returned to comic strips, collaborating with Hubinon once again to create Tiger Joe for La Libre Junior, the weekly comics supplement to the journal La Libre Belgique. Charlier also continued to supply scripts for Spirou magazine, collaborating with Eddy Paape on the strip Valhardi and, in 1955, with future Asterix artist Albert Uderzo on the comic strip Belloy. Together with Hubinon, he also created some biographical comics like Jean Mermoz and Surcouf. Other long-running series he started for Spirou in the early 1950s were La Patrouille des Castors for Mitacq, and in 1951 Les Vraies Histoires de l'Oncle Paul (Uncle Paul's true stories), a weekly comic of four pages telling a true story. The latter series was continued from 1954 on by Octave Joly and was a place where many young talents published their first comics, including Jean Graton, René Follet and Hermann Huppen.^[1]

Charlier, Hubinon, Uderzo, and comic-strip writer René Goscinny founded the comics agency Edifrance and the magazine Pistolin in 1955, and the influential magazine Pilote in 1959.^[1] Charlier was editor-in-chief and also wrote two stories for the first issue: Redbeard with Hubinon and Tanguy and Laverdure with Uderzo – these latter two characters would later get their own TV series as well: Les Chevaliers du Ciel, featuring Tanguy and Laverdure, was made by ORTF between 1967 and 1969, an English-dubbed version of the show being released under the title The Aeronauts.^[1]

Of seminal importance for the cultural phenomenon bandes dessinée turned out to be Charlier's initiative as publishing co-editor to start a line of comic book books for Dargaud (which bought out Pilote in 1960), collecting the stories as serialized in Pilote, becoming in effect Dargaud's first comic book releases. The first title in the series, coined La Collection Pilote, was the first adventure of Asterix from Uderzo and Goscinny, a runaway success right from the bat, followed by 16 comic titles from the magazine, with the first Blueberry adventure, Fort Navajo, becoming the last to be released in 1965. After that, the collection was suspended and each comic hero hitherto featured therein, spun off in a book series of their own. In order to give these releases a more "mature" image, the books were from the very start executed as hardcover editions for France, though they were, somewhat ironically, executed in softcover for Charlier's own native Belgium. More than favorably received, however, the collection has attained a mythical status in the world of Franco-Belgian comics.^[2]

Charlier visited the United States in 1963 and a tour of the American West inspired him to create Fort Navajo, a western series, for Pilote. He chose an artist Jean Giraud (Moebius), then a commercial illustrator who had briefly worked with Jijé on Jerry Spring, a popular European western strip. Fort Navajo, later renamed Blueberry or Lieutenant Blueberry after its main character, became a popular and innovative graphic novel.^[3] In 1972 friction among the staff at Pilote caused Charlier to give up his editorial position and he worked in French television until 1976. He then worked as editor-in-chief for two years at Tintin magazine. He continued to write Blueberry and Buck Danny stories.

Jean-Michel Charlier died in Saint-Cloud, France, in 1989. His main series are all continued by other writers, often chosen by Charlier himself.^[1]

Awards

1973: Shazam Award of the Academy of Comic Book Arts for Lieutenant Blueberry in the category "Best Foreign Comic Series", shared with Jean Giraud.^[4]
1973: Prix Phénix,^[5] Paris, in the category "Scenario d'Aventures", Charlier only.

Bibliography

Series	Years	Volumes	Artist	Publisher	Remarks
Buck Danny	1948–1988	44	Victor Hubinon (1-40) and Francis Bergèse (41-44)	Dupuis, Novedi and Hachette	Continued by Bergèse alone
Fanfan et Polo Aviateurs	1951	1	Dino Attanasio	La Libre Belgique
Tarawa, atoll sanglant	1951	1	Victor Hubinon and Albert Weinberg	Dupuis
Surcouf	1951–1953	3	Victor Hubinon	Dupuis
Tiger Joe	1951–1977	3	Hubinon	La Libre Belgique and Deligne	Spiritually succeeded by Kim Devil^[6]
Oncle Paul	1953–1955	12	Various artists, including Eddy Paape and Jean Graton	Dupuis	Additional stories by Octave Joly
Valhardi	1953–1975	6	Eddy Paape and Jijé	Dupuis and Deligne	Created by Jean Doisy
Kim Devil	1955–1957	4	Gérald Forton	Dupuis	Continuation of Tiger Joe under a different name due to publisher change^[6]
La Patrouille des Castors	1955–1984	23	Mitacq	Dupuis	Continued by Mitacq alone
Jean Mermoz	1956	1	Victor Hubinon	Dupuis
Marc Dacier	1960–1982	13	Eddy Paape	Dupuis
Tanguy et Laverdure	1961–1988	25	Albert Uderzo, Jijé, Serres and Coutelis	Dargaud, Le Lombard, Fleurus, Novedi and Hachette
Barbe-Rouge (Redbeard)	1961–1991	26	Victor Hubinon, Jijé, Lorg, Gaty and Patrice Pellerin	Dargaud, Fleurus, Novedi and Hachette
Blueberry	1965–1990	23	Jean Giraud	Dargaud, Fleurus, Novedi, Hachette, Alpen, and Dupuis
La jeunesse de Blueberry	1975–1990	6	Jean Giraud and Colin Wilson	Dargaud, Novedi, and Alpen
Guy Lebleu	1976	2	Raymond Poïvet	Glénat	Originally created in 1961
Belloy	1977	4	Albert Uderzo	Deligne	Originally created in 1948
André Lefort	1978	1	Eddy Paape	Bédéscope	Originally created in 1956
Jim Cutlass	1979	1	Jean Giraud	Les Humanoïdes Associés
Les Gringos	1979–1980	2	Victor de la Fuente	Fleurus
Jacques Le Gall	1980–1985	4	Mitacq	Dupuis	Originally created in 1959
Brice Bolt	1984–1985	2	Aldoma Puig	Dupuis	Originally created in 1971
Ron Clarke	1991	1	J. Armand	Alpen
Clairette	1997	1	Albert Uderzo	Antarès	Originally created in 1957

Footnotes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f De Weyer, Geert (2005). "Jean-Michel Charlier". In België gestript, pp. 177–179. Tielt: Lannoo.
^ L'Intégrale Tanguy et Laverdure 2: L'escadrille des cigognes, Paris: Dargaud, 2015, pp. 6–8, ISBN 9782205073119
^ "Los buenos, los feos y los malos". Malaga Hoy (in Spanish). 4 September 2010. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
^ 1973 Academy of Comic Book Arts Awards
^ Phénix was a specialized comic journal, published quarterly between 1966 and 1977 by Parisian publisher SRP Éditeur, and has been one of the oldest of its kind in the world (Bedetheque.com).
^ ^a ^b Detournay, Charles-Louis (6 May 2010). "La collection J.M. Charlier redonne vie à Kim Devil". actuabd.com. ActuaBD. Retrieved 4 April 2021.

References

Jean-Michel Charlier publications in Spirou and Pilote, BDoubliées.com (in French)
STROUMPF: Les Cahiers de la BD, nº 37, 1978 (in French)
Vidal, Guy [in French] (1995). Jean-Michel Charlier : Un réacteur sous la plume (in French). Paris: Dargaud. p. 48. ISBN 2205044117.
Béra, Michel; Denni, Michel; Mellot, Philippe (1998). Trésors de la Bande Dessinée 1999-2000 (in French). Paris: Les éditions de l'amateur. ISBN 2-85917-258-0.
"Spécial Westerns Charlier". Swof (in French). June 2000. Archived from the original on 28 September 2010. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
Svane, Erik; Surmann, Martin; Ledoux, Alain; Jurgeit, Martin; Berner, Horst; Förster, Gerhard (2003). Zack-Dossier 1: Blueberry und der europäische Western-Comic (in German). Berlin: Mosaik. p. 96. ISBN 393266759X.; the vast majority of the featured artist's interviews, conducted by Svane, was originally published in French in the Swiss comic journal Swof, Hors-Séries (Moebius-themed) issue 2, 2000/Q1, but were augmented with material edited out in the original publication, as well as augmented with material from other, older source publications, especially opportune in the latter case for the by then deceased Jean-Michel Charlier.
Ratier, Gilles [in French] (November 2013). Jean-Michel CHARLIER vous raconte... (in French). Bègles: Les Castor Astral. p. 320. ISBN 9782859209346.; biography